let's meander through the last few days, shall we?

i took last friday off and thad and i went down to foxwoods. we worked on parker all week and on the way down, and eventually he caved and took the train out to the woods and met up with us. geoff made it clear to me that he doesn't enjoy gambling stories, and honestly without more going on than gambling, they aren't that fun. foxwoods isn't the best locale for 'more to go on', so i'll make it brief: 13 hours, was up, ended up down. my winless streak in casinos stretches back to april in kansas city. of course, the small win in kc was nothing compared to the debacle that was las vegas a month earlier, so i feel like i've been on the shit side of variance since march at least. regardless, i had a good time and i'm pretty sure thad and parker did too, as exhausting as it all was.

we got back to porter square around 4:30am and crashed pretty damn fast after that. parker left on the 11am train, and thad and i decided to order chinese food. one of the greatest feelings in the world has to be getting good lo mein from a place 2 blocks away from your house. the general gau's wasn't that bad either. this whole situation is rife with potential.

thad took off around 3, leaving me home alone (jen was at work, ugh) with a slew of college football games on. seperation saturday and all that. so, i put on lsu-auburn and promptly fell asleep for a quarter or so. this was what is known as a "good decision." (aside: from this guide: "Do not use quotation marks for common nicknames, bits of humor, technical terms that readers are likely to know, and trite or well-known expressions." with all due respect, fuck that. i'll quote all the "trite expressions" i want to. end aside) i woke up to see michigan pounding notre dame, which didn't only surprise me, it genuinely upset me. i thought i was in bizarro land or something, but things like that will happen when you are working on 5 hours of lousy sleep.

let me zip onward to the vols game just so i can explain their portion of the title of the post real fast. tennessee had just given up a touchdown to florida and were down 21-20, the first time they were down since the trick touchdown early in the 2nd quarter. however, they were driving down the field with serious aplomb. from espn.com:

1st and 10 at TENN 24 Erik Ainge pass complete to Chris Brown for 5 yards to the Tenn 29. 21 20
2nd and 5 at TENN 29 Erik Ainge pass complete to Robert Meachem for 7 yards to the Tenn 36 for a 1ST down.
1st and 10 at TENN 36 Erik Ainge pass complete to Montario Hardesty for 15 yards to the Fla 49 for a 1ST down.
1st and 10 at FLA 49 Erik Ainge pass complete to Bret Smith for 4 yards to the Fla 45. 2nd and 6 at FLA 45 Erik Ainge pass incomplete.
3rd and 6 at FLA 45 Florida penalty 5 yard offside accepted.
3rd and 1 at FLA 40 Erik Ainge rush for 1 yard to the Fla 39 for a 1ST down.

first down, with about 5 yards to get to wilhoit's career long field goal (which he had already matched in the third quarter and had set in the 2004 game against florida) and 10-15 yards to get well within his range. what happens? the volunteers line completely forgets to block one of the gators linemen, leading to an intentional grounding/sack loss of 14 yards. ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE TENNESSEE 47! 8 yard slant, incomplete pass, and desperation interception on 4th down and the vols lose the game. if someone just gets a body on whoever the hell the gators lineman was, the vols have a real good chance at winning the game. what a fucking punch to the gut. i woke up sunday still feeling upset from that game.

let me back up a second and present this bit of data- since the louisville-miami game turned out to be a blowout, abc switched over to the oregon-oklahoma game. this oregon-oklahoma game in case you don't know. however, right at 7 (before any of the real exciting shit went down), wcvb switched over to... patriot's all-access (your weekly look at the new england patriots). um... really? more people would rather see a fluff show on the patriots (oooh see a day through the eyes of corey dillon!) than watch the end of an interesting back and forth battle between two top 25 college football teams? REALLY? this is not the first time i've questioned the boston abc affiliate's programming decisions, and i have a feeling it won't be the goddamn last time.

ok, anyways, the lsu-auburn game was awesome, the vols-gators game was really really tough, the clemson-fsu game was pretty fun (sorry seminoles fans, but it was)... so i guess it was a good day in college football. as long as you weren't stuck with wcvb's programming decisions. and you aren't a sooners fan. or a noles fan. or a vols fan. or a notre dame fan. but if you're a notre dame fan and you're over 13 years old you're probably lame. or capable of kicking my ass. or both.

so now we've come to the nfl portion of this post. congratulations on making it this far. i went 13/16 last weekend in the nfl, which was about par for the course in my yahoo pick'em pool. parker went 12/16, asian matched my 13/16, and whoever the hell La Policia is went 12/16 as well. la policia also had miami over buffalo in the survivor pool, so perhaps la policia should not reveal who he is in real life. what i did last week worked pretty well i think, so let me go through the playoff teams i had picked from the get go and then talk about surprising teams.

first, as always, the afc.

colts - they beat houston. not that shocking. good for them.
patriots - i went to walgreen's when the patriots had a solid 17-0 lead over the jets. i turn off the game, head out, come back and play civ... and find out the pats won 24-17. uh, what? against the jets? concern is creeping in... also, belicheck:wr::shanahan:rb?
bengals - chad johnson got JACKED UP. regardless, cincinatti's offense is really really good. i'm liking this team to win the division more and more.
broncos - i hate this pick more and more. they can't score a td against the chiefs? at home?? yeesh.
steelers - i picked jax to win this game, but i think it was a bit too easy. jacksonville's defense is really really good and there is no way big ben was really ready for this game. i mean, you got to get him some real playing time and all, but he was overmatched in his return. i still think they could pull out a wild card though.
chargers - i should have gone with them to win the division. that defense is stout, man. then again, they've played 2 of the worst teams in the nfl so far. let's see week 4 at baltimore, yeah?
surprises - do jacksonville and baltimore count as surprises if i had them in this spot last week? they both followed up with impressive performances. sure, baltimore beat oakland, but jacksonville did play very well against the champs. let me throw a new team out there... buffalo. very impressive showing in miami. and yes, i'm finally starting to strongly believe that culpepper's head is just gone.

now, the nfc.
let's kill two birds with one stone here - the giants and eagles were BOTH impressive on sunday. i think the game will certainly light a fire under the eagles asses, who seemed to just take it easy in the 4th quarter until it was too late. eli manning is doing everything in his power to prove me right.
panthers - no way they get the 1 seed in the nfc. what the hell are they doing over there? seriously, what the hell are they doing?
seattle - they jump out to an early lead, the defense does its thing, and they get deion branch next week. definitely in good shape, though the visiting giants will be no walk in the park.
bears - awesome.
vikings - 2-0 is 2-0, but they had no business winning that game against the panthers. i'd like to see a little more out of their offense before i feel comfortable with them. next week's vikings-bears game will be excellent.
surprises - i had atlanta and st. louis here last week, and atlanta has basically announced itself as the forerunner to win the nfc south at this point. next week @ new orleans could be really interesting. the saints have to be considered a surprise after going to green bay and knocking off a shitty shitty team in a hostile environment, but not nearly as impressive as atlanta's showing the last 2 weeks. what's that, you want another dark horse? well tough, there aren't any other's in the nfc.

so that was week 2 as i saw it. leave comments, and if someone can explain the panthers to me, please by all means do.

i can't see the coverage map yet, but if i get a fox doubleheader of chi@min followed by nyg@sea and a cbs singleheader of nyj@buf i will not be unhappy. i love it when the patriots are on primetime.

thanks for indulging me.